The invention relates generally to sulfonated polyaryletherketone-polyethersulfone block copolymers for use as proton exchange membranes.
Interest in using fuel cells as a clean, alternative power source has driven years of intense research in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell development to meet the cost and performance targets for automotive and portable applications. Current PEM fuel cells use mainly Nafion® or other perfluorosulfonic acid polymer membranes which have high proton conductivity and good chemical and mechanical stability under fully humidified conditions. However, the widespread use of these membranes has been limited by their high cost and poor performance at low relative humidities (RH). Therefore, alternative low-cost membrane materials which have better performance in less humidified conditions are desired.
Both polyethersulfones (PES) and polyaryletherketones (PAEK) such as polyetheretherketones (PEEK) are known for their excellent chemical and mechanical properties. The presence of crystallinity in PAEK also imparts solvent resistance. Sulfonated PES and PAEK polymers have been studied extensively for PEM fuel cell membrane applications. Polyaryletherketones are easily sulfonated by treatment with concentrated sulfuric acid. Therefore sulfonated PAEK (SPAEK) polymers, particularly sulfonated polyetheretherketones (SPEEK), reported to date have mostly been synthesized by post-sulfonation. However, directly copolymerized SPEEK polymers have also been reported recently. While polymer blends of SPEEK/PES have been described (Manea, et al., J. Membr. Sci., 206, 443-453 (2002)), block copolymers of SPEEK and PES have not been reported.